Why is Congress unable to perform its core functions? The primary culprits are hyper-partisanship in Congress and the constant messaging to each party’s base.
The Big Picture
When I was asked to write a piece explaining the budget process in Congress, I ended up punting on drafting something. Sure, I could explain the budget process as it’s supposed to work. There are statutory requirements that are supposed to be followed. In reality, passing a budget has proven difficult. Passing appropriations bills is even harder. The process has been blown up by legislative saboteurs who are more interested in scoring points with the base of their party than performing Congress’s most basic function.
So, why am I finally getting around to writing this piece? Well, the White House has finally rolled out its budget request for FY 2026. The budget request has already received a significant amount of media coverage because of the roughly $163 billion in proposed nondefense discretionary spending cuts. The rollout of the White House’s budget marks the beginning of the annual appropriations process on Capitol Hill. Committees will hold hearings with federal agencies about their requests over the next few weeks as they approach the FY 2026 appropriations process.
Of course, the budget that the White House has rolled out is rather pointless. It’s a messaging document, as evidenced by the supporting documentation provided by the Office of Management and Budget. That supporting documentation celebrates the proposed cuts of so-called “woke programs,” ending the “weaponization of the federal government,” and cuts to energy programs passed under the Biden administration. The fact is that Congress doesn’t care about the White House’s budget. It’s received and promptly ignored. Congress does what it wants to do.
Zooming In
How the Budget and Appropriations Process Is Supposed to Work
In 1974, Congress passed the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act (colloquially known as the “Budget Act”). This law dictates the process Congress must follow for the budget and appropriations cycle each fiscal year. Section 300 of the Budget Act includes a timetable for each step of the budget and appropriations process. The timetable and each step in it are what we call “regular order.”
The budget is a concurrent resolution that functions as an agreement between the House and the Senate on budgetary priorities, including revenue targets, budget authority, spending levels for major budget functions, budget surplus or deficit, and public debt (see 2 U.S.C. §632). Although Social Security and Medicare aren’t subject to congressional appropriation, outlays for these programs are included in the concurrent resolution. Concurrent resolutions, including budgets, aren’t presented to the President for signature or veto.
The primary purpose of a budget is to set the discretionary spending levels for the fiscal years to which the budget applies. Congress also includes the nine fiscal years after, but those fiscal years don’t matter as much because of changes in the control of Congress, the White House, and/or circumstances in the nation. For our purposes, the budget Congress recently passed, H.Con.Res. 14, isn’t the best example to follow. This budget primarily serves as the vehicle to kick-start the budget reconciliation process for tax cuts and other policy priorities of the Trump administration. Although the Budget Control Act of 2011 and the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 set discretionary spending levels, neither law was a budget in the true sense of the term. It’s worth noting that budget resolutions are privileged and need only a simple majority for passage.
Typically, the budget resolution will include either a committee report or, if there’s a conference committee, a joint explanatory statement that includes allocations to authorizing committees and the Appropriations committees. These are known as “302(a) allocations,” referencing Section 302(a) of the Budget Act, found in statute 2 U.S.C. §633(a). The Appropriations committees then further allocate the 302(a) allocations to the 12 subcommittees. These are the “302(b) subcommittee allocations,” required by 2 U.S.C. §633(b). The 302(b) allocations are how much money each subcommittee has to appropriate.
The Appropriations subcommittees begin work on the regular appropriations bills. This includes hearings with federal agency heads, communication with agency staff, and gathering priorities from members of the House and Senate. Each subcommittee marks up the bill over which it has jurisdiction. A markup is a business meeting in which members of the subcommittee can make amendments or speak on parts of the bill they think are important. After the subcommittee markup is complete, the full Appropriations Committee in both chambers also marks up each bill before it’s considered on the floor.
If there are differences between the House and the Senate, a conference committee between the two chambers will be formed to reach a final agreement that will eventually be voted on and submitted to the President for signature or veto. Theoretically, the House and Senate will do this 12 times, once for each appropriations bill. Unlike budget resolutions, appropriations bills aren’t privileged and require a three-fifths majority (or 60 votes if all senators are present and voting) to advance through procedural hurdles.
How the Budget and Appropriations Process Works in Practice
There’s no denying the fact that the budget and appropriations process are fundamentally broken. From FY 1995 through FY 2008, Congress failed to pass a budget resolution only once. That was for FY 1998. Since FY 2009, Congress has failed to pass a budget resolution for nine fiscal years. And we’re being generous here. For example, the budget resolution for FY 2025 was passed after Congress funded the federal government. The sole purpose of the FY 2025 budget resolution was to use budget reconciliation for tax cuts.
Congress hasn’t passed all 12 appropriations bills on time since 1996 (for FY 1997). Even then, we can’t really define the process for FY 1997 as regular order. Congress still had to pass a consolidated appropriations bill for that fiscal year to complete the process before the start of FY 1997. Congress hasn’t completed an appropriations bill on time since FY 2019, when it completed five of the regular appropriations bills before the beginning of that fiscal year. Again, Congress passed two separate consolidated appropriations bills to accomplish this. Energy and Water Development, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs were passed in H.R. 5895, while Defense and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education were passed in H.R. 6157. Both H.R. 5895 and H.R. 6157 passed in September 2018. Congress has to use a continuing resolution to kick the can down the road on the remaining seven appropriations bills, which were finally passed in February 2019, nearly six months into the fiscal year. Congress finished the remaining seven appropriations bills in H.J.Res. 31.
Independent Lens
In other words, Congress has gone six full fiscal years without passing a single appropriations bill on time. Instead, the Legislative Branch has continued to use stopgaps (continuing resolutions - “CR’s”) until congressional leadership prioritizes appropriations or strikes a funding deal. The reasons why this continues to happen aren’t complicated. The primary culprits are hyper-partisanship in Congress and the constant messaging to each party’s base. The voices who want Congress to return to regular order are often the same ones pushing language in appropriations bills or spending cuts that can’t pass both chambers. The failure of Congress to do its most basic function only breeds more uncertainty and further erodes trust in institutions.
